The Patriot Post Digest 8-30-2018

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The Patriot Post Digest 8-30-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mid-Day Digest

Aug. 30, 2018 · https://patriotpost.us/digests/57961-mid-day-digest

THE FOUNDATION

“To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.” —Alexander Hamilton (1791)

https://patriotpost.us/fqd/57960-founders-quote-daily

IN TODAY’S EDITION

A steady stream of good economic news has blue-collar workers optimistic.
Race-baiters target a Florida Republican for the word “monkey.”
Google works with Chinese commies while hindering American conservatives.
What they said about John McCain in 2008 is a lot different than now.
Daily Features: Top Headlines, Memes, Cartoons, Columnists, and Short Cuts.

IN BRIEF
Blue-Collar Optimism Soars1

Thomas Gallatin

A new Harris Poll finds that a whopping 85% of blue-collar workers say that their lives are headed “in the right direction.” The high optimism level may have much to do with the booming economy. The latest economic numbers indicate that the surging economy shows no signs of slowing down. On Wednesday, the Commerce Department raised its estimate for second-quarter GDP growth to 4.2%, which means that annual growth for the first half of the year now is above 3%. And with all indications pointing up, it has become increasingly likely that growth for the entire year will be at 3% or better. The country hasn’t seen a year like that since 2005.

On top of the good GDP numbers is news on median household income, which is now up more than 4%. As Investor’s Business Daily reports2, “Inflation-adjusted median household incomes in July hit $62,450 according to the latest release from Sentier Research. That’s the highest level since Sentier started tracking this more than 18 years ago. And if you combine Sentier’s numbers with annual Census data, median household income is at all-time highs.”

IBD continues, “More interesting is the fact that median household income has shot up more than 4% in the 19 months since Trump took office. It had been flat over the previous year and a half. Over the course of President Obama’s entire eight years in office, median household income climbed a mere 0.3%, Sentier data show.” Is it any wonder optimism is so high?

Harris also noted that 51% of blue-collar workers believe that the country as a whole is headed in the right direction, and 80% said that they are “very optimistic” about the future. 88% believed that their children would likely attain a better future than they. Needless to say, the large swaths of the country that Hillary Clinton and Democrats maligned and ignored — and then lost in 2016 — are clearly reaping the benefits of their vote. Go ahead and try convincing them that they voted for the wrong candidate.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57955-blue-collar-optimism-soars

Democrats Are All Monkeyed Up3

Nate Jackson

“That’s racist!” Conservatives and Republicans are far too familiar with this accusation being viciously thrown about by Democrats and the Leftmedia. So it’s no surprise that Florida Republican gubernatorial nominee Ron DeSantis has been smeared with it. DeSantis’s “crime”? Saying the word “monkey” when discussing the policies of his socialist opponent, Andrew Gillum. You see, Gillum is also black, which is irrelevant to anyone but the race-baiters.

DeSantis wasn’t even remotely racist in what he actually said. His true criticism was about Gillum’s socialism. He called Gillum “much liberal for Florida” and an “articulate spokesman for … far-left views.” Then he added, “We’ve got to work hard to make sure that we continue Florida going in a good direction. Let’s build off the success we’ve had on Governor [Rick] Scott. The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state. That’s not going to work.”

Cue the sirens, hysteria, and a suddenly crowded fainting couch.

Except as PowerLine’s Paul Mirengoff explains4, “‘Monkey it up’ means to play carelessly with something. DeSantis clearly was saying that voters shouldn’t mess with the success Florida is experiencing under Gov. Scott, a conservative, by electing a candidate with a socialist agenda. His meaning could not have been plainer.”

But when the Left’s narrative for decades has been that Republicans are bigoted racists, some folks begin to hear everything Republicans say through that distorted filter. But this is far more malicious than passively misunderstanding — it’s deliberate and deceitful slander meant to keep blacks voting Democrat. Talk about divisive rhetoric.

The silver lining is that this strategy sometimes backfires, as in the election of President Donald Trump, who endorsed DeSantis in the primary.

Nevertheless, Gillum’s strategy is to double down on tying DeSantis to Trump. The Republican candidate “is going to join Donald Trump in the swamp,” Gillum declared. While the Leftmedia speaks of “dog whistles,” Gillum went further, saying, “In the handbook of Donald Trump, they no longer do whistle calls — they’re now using full bullhorns.”

Maybe Gillum knows only dogs hear dog whistles, so he’s gotta change up the desperate metaphor. In any case, Democrats’ increasing predisposition for socialism and divisive race-baiting should have Florida voters running the other direction.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57957-democrats-are-all-monkeyed-up

Top Headlines5

NAFTA talks to continue as Trump says they’re on track for deal (Bloomberg6)
Judge drops charges against terror suspects linked to jihadi compound7 in New Mexico (Townhall8)
U.S. is denying passports to Americans along the border, throwing their citizenship into question (The Washington Post9)
Kanye West goes all in to win black community over for Trump (The Daily Wire10)
NATO: Russia building up naval presence in Mediterranean (The Washington Free Beacon11)
Declassified interrogation reports show how much Iran shaped Iraq war (The Wall Street Journal12)
Trump says Korea military drills could be restarted (Associated Press13)
In this age of anything goes, STDs hit an alarming record high (The Resurgent14)
Trump “red cards” the media at White House FIFA event (Fox News Insider15)
Humor: Quick Google search confirms Google not rigged (The Babylon Bee16)
Policy: What to do about the growing popularity of socialism (The Daily Signal17)
Policy: When environmental regulations become a tax on the poor (Economics2118)
For more of today’s news, visit Patriot Headline Report19.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57958-thursday-top-headlines

GOOD NEWS

Facebook’s Conservatives Find Their Courage20
A small but courageous group of Facebook employees take a stand for free speech and speak against the oppressive leftist mono-political culture permeating the company. They are inviting others to join their Liberty-loving group of “FB'ers for Political Diversity.”

For more, visit National Review21.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57959-facebooks-conservatives-find-their-courag

FEATURED ANALYSIS
Google Searches — For Its Own Credibility27

Arnold Ahlert

“To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” —Google’s mission statement28

That mission statement is a bald-faced lie. The company will provide Communist China with a search engine “that will blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest,” The Intercept reports29, citing leaked company documents to bolster that assertion.

Named “Dragonfly,” its implementation was accelerated “following a December 2017 meeting between Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and a top Chinese government official, according to internal Google documents and people familiar with the plans,” The Intercept adds.

Two different versions of a custom Android app, named “Maotai” and “Longfei,” have been created by teams of Google programmers and engineers. The App has already been shown to the Chinese government, and its finalized version could be available by early 2019, pending government approval.

The move marks a complete 180 from the company’s withdrawal of its services from China in 2010, when it refused30 to comply with censorship demands. Moreover, Google was hardly up front about its latest move — only a few hundred of the company’s 88,000 employees were briefed about it.

That secrecy elicited a letter signed by 1,400 company employees. It was released31 to The New York Times and, almost comically, reveals those employees were treated almost exactly like Google intends to treat ordinary Chinese citizens. “Currently we do not have the information required to make ethically-informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment,” the letter states. “That the decision to build Dragonfly was made in secret, and progressed with the [artificial intelligence] principles in place, makes clear that the principles alone are not enough. We urgently need more transparency, a seat at the table, and a commitment to clear and open processes: Google employees need to know what we’re building.”

What they’re building is market share — and principles are the first casualty. “China has the world’s largest internet audience,” the Times adds, “but has frustrated American tech giants with content restrictions or outright blockages of services including Facebook and Instagram.”

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The Patriot Post Digest 8-30-2018
From The Federalist Patriot
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Such roadblocks will no longer be a problem. Documents viewed by The Intercept reveal32 Google’s efforts are part of a “joint venture” with a partner company, presumably Chinese, because the nation’s law requires Internet providers to operate their servers and data centers in country. Google will provide that company with an “application programming interface” (API) that would allow it to expand its censorship capabilities.

China’s “Great Firewall” blocks Internet access to subjects its government deems off limits. A search that might yield such results prompts a disclaimer that states “some results may have been removed due to statutory requirements.”

Google will abide those statutes.

And while Google moves closer to China, it is moving away from the U.S. military. Last April, thousands of Google employees signed a letter protesting33 the company’s partnership with the Pentagon regarding “Project Maven,” an AI program that interprets video imagery in a way that enhances targeting for drone strikes. “We believe that Google should not be in the business of war,” the letter stated. Following several resignations and refusals by employees to work on the project, Google chose34 not to renew that contract.

But Google will help America’s foremost military adversary keep its boot on the collective necks of the Chinese people.

Google won’t completely abandon the Pentagon. Pichai published35 a set of guidelines forbidding the company from deploying AI that would “cause overall harm,” or weapons or other technologies that would “cause or directly facilitate injury to people,” violate “internationally accepted norms,” or “principles of international law and human rights.”

The article also listed seven principles to which the company would ostensibly adhere. “Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias” was Number 2.

Not quite. As PJ Media columnist Paula Bolyard discovered36, searching for “Trump” using Google’s “News” tab yielded a disproportionate number of left-leaning news sites compared to right-leaning ones. How disproportionate? “In fact, left-leaning sites comprised 96 percent of the total results,” Bolyard reveals. Bolyard’s investigation is anecdotal. By contrast, Can I Rank, a SEO (search engine optimization) company, conducted37 a test collecting more than 1,200 URLs ranking highly at the search giant’s website, using a variety of politically charged keywords or phrases. “Among our key findings were that top search results were almost 40% more likely to contain pages with a ‘Left’ or ‘Far Left’ slant than they were pages from the right,” it revealed.

And despite Google’s assertion that it is fair and balanced — using the introduction38 of a fact-checking mechanism in October 2016 to bolster that claim — there is, according to Can I Rank, no attempt by Google “to present multiple viewpoints on controversial political issues, and the algorithm in its current form does not return results equally distributed across the entire political spectrum.”

Last year, the EU agreed, fining39 Google $2.7 billion for search bias.

Google contends its algorithms have no political bias and the company would “never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment,” it said in a statement40.

Columnist Roger L. Simon illuminates41 the bigger picture, insisting that tech giants like Google are the most dangerous monopolies ever, because “they monopolize not just our industries but our brains.” He’s right. Google’s worldwide market share42 is 90.46%.

Columnist Andrew Klavan believes43 Americans have a decision to make: “Do we want to preserve American liberty and the constitutional machinery that maintains that liberty — or not?” he asks.

His answer? Only half the country’s on board. “To my mind, our news media, our academies, the corporate culture of Silicon Valley, and the Democrat Party have all lost the plot of American liberty,” he writes. “They believe in socialism. They believe in a disarmed populace. They believe in ruling through the judiciary. And they believe in censorship of ideas they don’t like.”

And from China to America, Google is with the totalitarians — every step of the way.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57940-google-searches-for-its-own-credibility

MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST

What They Said About McCain in 200844 — These days, you’ll see a lot of praise, but it’s a far cry from the sliming 10 years ago.
Video: Going Postal45 — Ami Horowitz says China is getting away with extremely low shipping costs that hurt American business.

OPINION IN BRIEF

Victor Davis Hanson: “No president has ever faced impeachment for supposed wrongdoing alleged to have taken place before he took office — not Andrew Johnson, not Richard Nixon, and not even Bill Clinton, who lied about his liaisons with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. With the effort to go back years, if not decades, into Trump’s business and personal life, we are now in unchartered territory. The argument is not that Trump committed crimes while president — indeed, his record at home and abroad is winning praise. The allegations are instead about what he may have done as a private citizen, and whether it could have reversed the 2016 election. The only way to clear up this messy saga is for Trump to immediately declassify all documents — without redactions — relating to the Mueller investigation, the FISA court warrants, the Clinton email investigation, and CIA and FBI involvement with the dossier and the use of informants. Second, there needs to be another special counsel to investigate wrongdoing on the part of senior officials in these now nearly discredited agencies. The mandate should be to discover whether there was serial conflict of interest, chronic lying to federal officials, obstruction of justice, improper unmasking and leaking, misleading of federal courts, and violation of campaign finance laws. It is past time to stop the stonewalling, the redacting, the suppression, the leaking to the press and the media hysteria. The government must turn over all relevant documents to two special counsels and free each to discover who did what in 2016. Americans need the whole truth to ensure equality under the law and to thereby set us free from this nearly two-year nightmare.”

SHORT CUTS

Friendly fire: “I don’t talk about impeachment. I think that’s the wrong thing for Democrats to do. I think the outcome of the 2018 elections are just completely unknown now.” —Jimmy Carter

Non Compos Mentis I: “The only way I see the end of Trump is if there’s overwhelming evidence he rigged the 2016 election. In which case impeachment isn’t an adequate remedy. His presidency should be annulled. … Annulment would repeal all of an unconstitutional president’s appointments and executive actions, and would eliminate the official record of the presidency.” —former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich

Non Compos Mentis II: “Two of the most powerful men in the country have been credibly accused of sexual crimes and gotten away with it. Laws cracking down on sexual assault have to be signed by a president who multiple women say assaulted them. Regulations to stop sexual harassment can be struck down by a Supreme Court justice who lied under oath to counter allegations of sexual harassment. Why would victims think a government like that is looking out for them?” —Massachusetts State Sen. and U.S. House candidate Barbara L'Italien

Braying Jackass: “Another tragic mass shooting in Florida. Republican Governor Rick Scott proudly boasted that he passed more Pro-gun, NRA legislation than any other governor. Time to close the chapter on deadly pandering. #WinBackYourState, Florida.” —Martin O'Malley

Alpha Jackass: “In many ways — and I don’t mean to sound overly, I don’t know, hyperbolic on this — Trump and Osama bin Laden have a tremendous amount in common.” —Illinois congressional candidate Sean Casten

Divide and conquer: “We are going to have so many women and that’s why the Republicans are so afraid and that’s why President Trump is so afraid. He’s afraid of all the women, people of color, LGBTQ numbers that will be added to the ranks in the Democratic Party, which is already a majority of women, and people of color, and LGBTQ. But … it’s going to be larger numbers and it frightens them.” —Nancy Pelosi

And last… “Calling Antifa a primarily black organization is like labeling Black Lives Matter a bunch of Bernie Bros.” —Noah Rothman

https://patriotpost.us/articles/57953-thursday-short-cuts

Join our editors and staff in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families. We also humbly ask prayer for your Patriot team, that our mission would seed and encourage the spirit of Liberty in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis

Nate Jackson, Managing Editor
Mark Alexander, Publisher